Geoffrey Owens Speaks Out After Trader Joe’s Pictures Go Viral: ‘No One Should Feel Sorry For Me’
If you didn’t spend last week enjoying the final, humid gasps of summer, you might have seen social media blow up with the story of actor Geoffrey Owens. Best known as Sondra’s husband Elvin on The Cosby Show, Owens was recently making ends meet between gigs working in a Trader Joe’s, where he was recognized by a patron who snapped a few photos of him working a register.
The pics showed up on television and on Twitter, but any “job shaming” initial reaction soon gave way to a second wave of actors, directors, and fans sharing their support for Owens, praising his work ethic, and offering their own stories of day jobs they took to pay the bills. And now Owens himself has spoken out about his sudden viral celebrity in a new Good Morning America interview which you can watch below:
Despite the fact that he went viral last week, Owens claims this isn’t the first time he was recognized while working at Trader Joe’s:
People recognized me every day. And they were very cool about it. Sometimes too cool! Like they’d be like “Oh you work here?” Like, yeah. It was no big deal.
Owens told Robin Roberts the renewed attention hadn’t resulted in new acting job offers yet, but that he was okay about that. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable getting acting jobs from this event,” Owens explained. “I wouldn’t mind getting auditions. I wouldn’t mind if people call me in to try out for things due to what’s happened. But I actually wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone giving me a job because this happened. I want to get a job because I’m the right person for that job.”
Uh, no one show him this Tyler Perry tweet then...
Owens also said no one should feel sorry for him just because he was working at Trader Joe’s. He also added that he hopes this whole incident forces people to rethink the way they look at work. And that’s a good lesson for everyone. Acting is a job, and even a glamorous one sometimes, but it’s a job, with ups and downs like any other.
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